Paolo Benedetti is a leader in the pool construction industry. Benedetti, as the President of Aquatic Technology, in Morgan Hill, CA has built his share of luxury spas and pools. Benedetti is also an expert witness and an educator in addition to managing a successful construction company. He is now one of the industry’s most respected technical experts.
We had the opportunity to catch up with Benedetti recently while he taught a class at the Everything Under The Sun Expo. We met Benedetti before he taught a classroom full of pool builders in Orlando.
You can read our exclusive interview with Paolo Benedetti.
Pool magazine (PM): Could you tell our readers about your background and how you got into the swimming pool business?
Paolo Benedetti: I already had a contractor’s license and purchased a pool-service company from a man who was retiring. I was able to get 300 accounts within the Silicon Valley region. I was asked to remodel the pools of some service company clients, so I got my C53.
At that time, I was a licensed general contractor because I was assisting my father. We were flipping homes back and forth. It was easy to get into pool remodeling. I began by doing some tile work, some coping and plastering jobs, as well as replumbing. This aspect of the business I enjoyed a lot. As we did some of these renovations, I realized that the original construction of many of them was substandard. This is when I began to formulate my plan for getting into pool construction.
PM – What was your first pool?
PB: My first pool was built in 1995. It was a perimeter overflow swimming pool worth $350,000. It was difficult to find out how to complete the project after I had sold it. It was through this that I first met Genesis. The first class was taught in Morro Bay. My engineer told me about it, and recommended that I go. He said: “You have to attend this pool school this guy has just started on infrastructure.” It’s unique in the industry. I hired Skip Phillips as a mentor to help me with my first project.
They realized I had some skills to offer their program shortly after. I began teaching for Genesis a few years later. It was this experience that started me on my journey to give back to the industry.
The first pool was created for a Silicon Valley semiconductor company founder. In the end, we finished that pool in eight months. My wife and I then were invited to their home for a cocktail party with black tie. Intel’s principals were in attendance, and the list of guests was a who’s who of Silicon Valley.
I watched all the guys around the pool, where we had installed our first two laminars of Crystal Fountains. We used the betas on this job. These guys hadn’t seen laminar streams before, and this pool was filled with them. The guys were in Tuxedos and straddling the stream while pretending to pee. It was one of the most hilarious things you’ve ever seen. It was a long time ago, but I would have loved to have had a digital camera. We were a big hit. I gave out a few dozen business cards at that cocktail party and it was a success.
PM : It sounds like your career has taken off from there.
PB: Yes! From there, we decided to stop being a pool-service company and focus more on construction. We now average between four and six projects per year because some take more than one year to complete.
My general contractor’s license allowed me to do many things that a pool contractor was not licensed to do. We were able to do hardscapes and outdoor kitchens as well as hillside infinity pool. That’s where I started, in the high-end market. We started to expand as my client base grew.
PM : You travel around the world building pools now and you are really piling up frequent flyer miles.
PB: Exactly. Immediately, people asked me if I would be interested in taking on this project in Montana. Would you be interested in doing this project on Hawaii? We started to travel a lot to work on projects.
Traveling all over the world is glamorous to my college friends. It’s boring to travel alone. You eat meals alone. Sometimes it can be a bit lonely.
I have another company, Luxury Environments. I do not advertise it. We have a Facebook page but don’t promote it much. I have been representing wealthy individuals who are building vacation houses for seven or eight year. It all started when I did a project 15 years ago for a family who was building a 10,000 square foot cabana in the backyard of their home. The family fired the general contractor after they believed he was inflating the bill. They asked me to manage the project and if i would finish it. After we made a deal, I became their go to. They would ask me to be their owner’s representative on the job whenever they were building, just like a contractor. This is how I became a construction manager for these high-net worth individuals. If you do one for someone, they’ll want you to keep doing it.
PM: At the time, you could not attend an Ivy League University to study pool construction and design. You must have had to learn a lot by yourself.
PB: Yes, I did. No, there wasn’t. I developed a lot of techniques on my own. I’m still trying to put that knowledge back into the industry. I’m giving a class this morning on grade beams. I’ve been doing them for many years, and I believe builders will learn much from this class.
PM : You’ve been dubbed one of the top designers in the business and are a mentor for hundreds, if you don’t say thousands, of builders.
PB: My accessibility is something I take great pride in. Many people call me and tell me that they took my construction class, and have a question. So, I am more than willing to mentor others. I’ll be returning to North Carolina in a few weeks to mentor a man who is doing his first knife-edge pool.
I fell into what I consider to be one of the hardest architectural styles to construct. My projects are often architecturally integrated into the home. It’s often the same thing with an indoor-outdoor style of living that’s free-flowing.
PM – That’s what the high-end home buyers want.
PB: Yes, exactly. I’m not a fan of building a home and then doing this crazy thing at the back. It would look tacky. I’m one of those guys that if a customer wants to do a fireplace feature, I won’t go through a catalogue and pick out something in distribution. We will have it custom-made.
PM : This project, which we will highlight in Pool magazine, has some of the elements we talked about. The backyard itself has a dramatic kind of elevation.
PB: It was a steep slope. Originally, they told me, “Hey, this is our hillside.” We’d like to build a pool there. So we agreed. We built the pool over an extension to the home’s foundation.
We love how beautiful this pool is at night.
PB: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. The client was very concerned with color during the design phase. Tile is the only way I can guarantee a certain color for a pool. The tile we chose was a fused-glass tile from Interstyle, which is a Canadian product. They have an array of colors and textures. They have probably 8 or 10 different textures, from bumps to wavy surfaces. You can choose from a variety of different surface variations.
The lighting is also amazing. You created a starfield effect that is stunning.
PB: Thanks. This was the first fiberoptic starfield I had done in a pool with glass tiles. We didn’t wish to drill into the glass tiles, so we devised a method to get the fibers up between the grout joints.
My tile guys showed great patience. The starfield added an extra level of complexity to their work. As we had 300 fiber optics coming from the floor, as the tile sheets were being set up, we pulled the fibers out through the grout joints and then went back to detail between the tiles using thin-set.
PM: Our conversation is reaching a point where we would like to change gears and discuss your role as an expert witness in the industry. What do you do as an expert witness?
I don’t take sides. I tend to represent more property owners than pool builders. However, builders do occasionally call me and say: “Hey, look! I’m getting sued.” I need you to help me’.
You need to know that there are many expert witnesses who work in the pool business. They are hired guns. It is said that you can hire an expert to say anything. If someone hires me I will tell the truth. What an expert witness should do is to speak only the facts. The truth is as hard to grasp as the facts.
You must have seen a lot. You’ve shown us some horrible examples on your social media feeds, such as pools made of substandard steel or with shovel-crete.
PB: You name it, I’ve seen it. Many of these builders do their own engineering, and they don’t hire a professional engineer to work for them. They don’t know why placing the drains above the steel, and then filling up the shotcrete to the sump will affect their steel-to concrete ratios. Now they have a floor that is twelve inches thick.
PM: Was that the reason you went into education? You seem to be passionate about helping people correct these kinds of flaws.
PB: My primary motivation for this is to educate people about what they do not know. Subcontractors are often the ones who lead the industry. Many pool contractors will do something a certain way just because they have always done it. This may not be the best way.
Paolo Benedetti is a man of many faces. He’s an expert in pool construction and an educator. His passion is innovation. He has made it his goal to elevate the profession by teaching and applying proper techniques. Benedetti is always willing to share his knowledge and expertise, and his hard work has earned him the respect and admiration from his peers.
Photo Credit for the Featured Image: Jimi Smith Photographer
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